Black Desert Online: Contribution Points, Energy, and Nodes

In Black Desert Online, contribution points and energy are stats that play an important role in the game, while nodes are areas that you can interact with using contribution points and energy. This article explains how to gain contribution points and energy points, what you can use them for, and how they connect to nodes.

The map showing nodes that can be invested into in Balenos, Heidel and Calpheon. | Source

What are Contribution Points?

Contribution points is a stat that can be used to invest in nodes, workshops, and special equipment. This stat is independent of your level and gear and only raises due to your actions in Black Desert Online.

You never spend your contribution points, you just choose where to invest the pool of contribution points you already have. For example, say you have invested in an iron node and have enough iron. You can then withdraw your investment and use the contribution points that are freed to invest in some other node or workshop.

You can get 250 contribution points before you hit what is known as the "soft cap." After that, it gets much harder to increase your contribution points. Despite that, there is no hard cap, so in theory you can have an endless supply. However realistically, 300-350 contribution points is the most one can hope to get.

In the top left corner, you can see your energy and contribution points. The image shows 141 energy available of a total of 211 and 0 contribution points of a total of 237. | Source

How to get Contribution Points?

There are three ways to gain contribution points. By completing regular quests, completing daily contribution quests and by turning in certain extra materials that are made during cooking and alchemy. All of these reward you with contribution experience. When you reach a certain amount of contribution experience (which increases as you gain more contribution points) you gain a contribution point.

While doing quests is a good way to get contribution points at early stages, getting contribution points from cooking is probably the fastest and easiest way, especially from cooking beer. Cooking beer gives the same amount of extra materials as other forms of cooking and since there is always a need for beer it is easily sold. Also, if you are building a worker empire then you will always be in need of beer.

Investing Contribution Points

To invest your contribution points on items or nodes you need to speak with a node manager or the NPC that has the special item. To invest contribution points on houses you just need to use the map and find the appropriate building you wish to invest in.

Nodes and workshops take from 1 to 5 contribution points while special items can take up to 100 points.

The Node manager at Costa farm. By pressing the node management button, you can choose to invest in the node. | Source

What is Energy?

Energy is a stat that is needed to perform certain actions such as gathering, accessing worker contracts and the night vendor to name a few. Having a high energy pool allows you to perform these actions more frequently.

A nice trick is to have all your possible character slots in use as each character shares the total energy. For example, if you have five characters and your energy stat is at 200, then the total energy across your five characters is 1000 (200 each character).

Energy is restored by 1 point every 3 minutes on an active character. For the inactive characters or when you are offline, energy restores by 1 per 30 minutes.

You can also have your character lie in a bed or use special food to gain energy faster while active.

How to Increase Energy?

The almost only way to increase energy is to gain knowledge. You gain knowledge by interacting with the world. Speaking with NPC's, finding new resources and new types of fish, discovering new areas and so forth all increase your knowledge.

If you press the h button on your keyboard you open the knowledge screen. Here you can see all the possible knowledge groups that you can fill. To gain an energy point you need to discover a certain amount of knowledge pieces belonging to each group. Some groups are large and offer several energy points with energy points rewarded for partial completion. Other groups only reward one energy when completed.

You can also gain a few energy points from gaining titles and the occasional

The knowledge screen where you can see all the knowledge you have gained and what you still need to find. On the bottom right you can see what you need to gain energy. | Source

What are Nodes?

Nodes are the little circles you see when you open your map. Their usefulness lies in the fact that connected nodes allow you to trade items between traders at full price, you can have workers work the node for materials and you can invest energy into the node to increase the amount of loot dropped by mobs.

When you have invested in a material node you can have your workers harvest that material. When you invest in the node for the first time you automatically get to select a worker to work that node. If you lack a worker you can always open the node later and assign him to the node.

Note that some material nodes do not appear until you have gained certain knowledge. Usually the node manager where the material node is located will offer you the knowledge for some energy.

Trading between nodes. You need to have every node connected between the node you buy or make the item and were you sell the item | Source

Investing Energy in Nodes

You can invest energy into nodes to increase the loot that is dropped from mobs. In theory, it should also increase materials gathered from workers and give a higher chance of receiving a blue item when producing at a workshop. This however has not been observed from any testing and is probably an inactive feature.

The energy needed to increase the node is 100 times the level it will become. So, a node at level 6 needs 700 energy to raise to level 7. The investment level of a node has a maximum of 10, needing 5500 energy points to raise from 0 to 10.

This means that investing energy into nodes takes a long time at first, but as your energy reserves grow and your number of characters increase getting a node from 0 to 10 might take a week or even a little less.

Summary

In short, you get contribution points from doing quests and turning in extra materials from cooking and alchemy. You get energy from gaining additional knowledge and nodes can be gained by investing with contribution points and loot improved by investing energy into them.